Facts

WaPo Issues Correction after Falsely Labeling Nathan Phillips a Vietnam Vet [The National Review]
Jack Crowe
,The National Review•January 22, 2019 news.yahoo.com“…Phillips initially told the Post and a number of other prominent media outlets that he was surrounded and harassed by a group of MAGA hat-wearing students from the all-male Covington High School in Kentucky while he was peacefully demonstrating near the Lincoln Memorial during the annual March for Life on Saturday. That account, which was supported by a partial and misleading video clip of the incident, went viral and led to the targeted harassment of the boys and their families.

Phillips, who conceded that he initiated the confrontation after the more complete video footage became available, also appears to have misled reporters about his military service, as he was described as a Vietnam veteran by Vogue and the Detroit Free Press, and, in an interview with CNN, he described himself as a “Vietnam-times veteran.”..”Native American activist Nathan Phillips has a criminal record By Yaron Steinbuch January 24, 2019 | 9:18am | Updated nypost.com“..Phillips actually spent most of his time in the Marines as a refrigerator technician after initially being an anti-tank missileman for four months, had not been deployed outside the US and never saw combat, according to the corps…

Phillips, who has described himself as a “Vietnam times veteran,” told the Washington Post in 2000 that he had been “a Marine Corps infantryman,” without mentioning that he had been a refrigerator tech for most of his service….

Phillips stood toe to toe with Nick Sandmann, who was wearing a red “Make American Great Again” cap, moments after the 16-year-old and his classmates ran into several members of the Black Hebrew Israelites.

Phillips, who had just attended an Indigenous Peoples March, has said he approached the students to try to defuse the tension between them and members of the radical group.

Sandmann — whose family quickly hired the Louisville-based public relations firm RunSwitch PR — on Wednesday denied that he was “disrespectful” toward the elder after he was criticized online for appearing to smirk at Phillips.

He also told NBC’s “Today” show that he’d like a sitdown with Phillips, who has offered to visit the Kentucky school to lead a dialogue about cultural understanding.”

“..But did the video really describe what happened? That should have been the first question journalists asked. Checking facts and adding context is what journalists are paid to do. It’s in the first line of the job description. Yet, amazingly, almost nobody in the American media did that.

That’s a shame, because there was a lot to check. The full video of what happened on Friday in Washington is well over an hour long. The four minutes that made Twitter don’t tell the story, but instead distorted the story. A longer look shows that the boys from Covington Catholic in Kentucky weren’t a roving mob looking for a fight. They were, in fact — and it shows it on the tape — standing in place waiting to be picked up by a bus.

As they waited there, members of a group called the Black Hebrew Israelites, a black supremacist…”

Fake News Slanders MAGA Teens Being Harassed by … – YouTube

Student in standoff with Native American defends his actions – video report Wed 23 Jan 2019 15.23 EST
Last modified on Thu 24 Jan 2019 05.56 EST theguardian.com“..The Kentucky high school student filmed in an apparent standoff with a Native American activist in Washington DC says he was ‘not disrespectful’ during the interaction, as a spokesman for Donald Trump said students from Covington high school may be invited to the White House

“As a Catholic I felt duty bound to speak up and hold them accountable, but that really isn’t my job,” she wrote. “I also don’t believe these teenagers should be tarnished forever for what amounts to one really bad day.”

Powers ended her thread with a pledge “to do better.”..

2) I work hard to see
every side of an issue and also speak up when I see a wrong. But indoing that I am too often judgmental and condemning–both on and off social media–in a way that iscontrary to my belief system and my faith.

— Kirsten Powers (@KirstenPowers) February 18, 2019

4) Yes, this applies in the Covington case. This will please nobody because I still believe the teenagers were disrespectful, but my tweets were lacking in grace. As a Catholic I felt duty bound to speak up and hold them accountable, but that really isn’t my job…”
,p>

Science Technology

businessinsider.com“…The Afro-futurist blockbuster takes place in Wakanda, a fictional African nation that is generations ahead of the rest of the world technologically, but chooses to hide its innovations in order to protect its people.

..

There are several references to futuristic vehicles in the film, but none got more screen time than the high-speed magnetic levitation subway that runs through Wakanda’s famous vibranium mine.

..

Shuri’s maglev may be years ahead of any current transit rail systems, but as with most conceivably achievable sci-fi tropes, Elon Musk is working on it.

Just last week, SpaceX got a permit to begin excavations in Washington, DC for building the Hyperloop, a high-speed, vacuum-powered railway that Musk says will someday be able to carry passengers from New York to the capitol in under 30 minutes.

The technology is still in its infan..

So the lore goes, a large meteorite full of vibranium crash-landed in Wakanda, and the material is highly coveted throughout the rest of the world.

The fictional element is used to make weapons, including Captain America’s shield, as well as vehicles and other tech throughout Wakanda. It’s also stitched into Black Panther’s suit, making it bulletproof and giving T’Challa the ability to absorb the energy from blows he sustains and release that energy when it’s useful, but we’ll talk about that later in the list.,,,

…Although vibranium has a few properties that are nearly impossible to emulate in real life, most experts agree that graphene is a comparable real-life counterpart. (Yes, there are superhero physics experts.)

Graphene may not look like much, but it holds the title of the strongest material ever tested. In an op-ed for Wired, Physicist and University of Minnesota professor James Kakalios described graphene as “10 times more bulletproof than steel” and practically invisible, due to its unique atomic structure.
..”

United States

Stats

7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America By Kelly Shattuck – December 14, 2017 churchleaders.com“.. Numbers from actual counts of people in Orthodox Christian churches (Catholic, mainline and evangelical) show that in 2004, 17.7 percent of the population attended a Christian church on any given weekend.”..”

Declining Church Attendance: Absurd Religion – CBN.com – YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zNL3ITV-Zo“The Christian Broadcasting Network
Published on Oct 28, 2008
Steve Gray passionately wants church people to change what he calls “absurd religion” into the authentic presence of God. Gray addresses empty pews and looks at what kind of church God would attend.

The Christian Broadcasting Network
..”

Church Decline Factors?

6 Things Pastors Do To Kill Church Growthhttps://youtu.be/9fapqV8FyDc
Sal: great tip…get folks to do their #Godgivengift calling and destiny. Also, the last tip-stop doing it all yourself!

Melissa S.
5.0 out of 5 starsInformative and Heartbreaking Book
February 7, 2017
Format: Mass Market Paperback
“Witness to War: An American Doctor in El Salvador” by Dr. Charles Clements is part memoir, part ethnography, part history text, part war memorial. This book is a triumph, one I recommend EVERYONE read.

“Witness to War” is a difficult book to absorb. The challenging content includes the subject matter of the civil war in El Salvador in the early 1980s (complete with many anecdotes of atrocities), the author’s adherence to Quaker principles of pacifism in the face of government brutality, and the involvement of the United States government in funding the death squads of El Salvador — as well as the United States funding of the relentless state-sanctioned massacres of civilians by the army of El Salvador — make this one of the most painful books I’ve ever set out to finish. In addition to the difficult content, “Witness to War” wasn’t penned to be a literary work. The prose is straightforward, and the story doesn’t use suspense as a plot device. Facts are told in a straightforward manner, details are delivered bluntly, and the result is a raw honesty on the page that is astonishing as well as heartbreaking.

I really love this book. I felt like I took an entire class on the history of El Salvador by reading “Witness to War.” The author took so many risks, and sacrificed so much of his personal life, in order to live among the guerrillas of El Salvador for an entire year, caring for the medical needs of civilians (and sometimes, the soldiers — both the guerrillas and the army POWs captured by the guerrillas) who were injured and killed during this conflict.

“Witness to War” is an amazing achievement. I’m so glad that Dr. Charles Clements journeyed to El Salvador on a personal humanitarian mission, wrote this book, and shared this story with the world. It’s a brutally important book to read, full of truths about imperialism, injustice, and resistance, as well as the specific civil war in El Salvador.

“Witness to War” had so much to teach me. I express my profound gratitude for the opportunity to read this great book. Thank you, Dr. Clements, for this truly significant memoir. “Witness to War” is a heartbreaking treasure, a beautiful testament to the goodness and perseverance of the people of El Salvador. I deeply appreciate getting to know this country and its people much better….”

Witness to War: Doctor Charlie Clements Interview

The Film Archives
Published on Jun 30, 2012”
Charlie Clements currently serves as the Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. From 2003 to 2010, Dr. Clements served as President and CEO of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and before that he was the President of Physicians for Human Rights.

Dr. Clements wrote Witness to War, which was published in 1983. This book chronicles experience as a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Academy who had flown more than 50 missions in the Vietnam War. He decided the war was immoral and refused to fly missions in support of the invasion of Cambodia. Later, as a newly trained physician, he chose to work in the midst of El Salvador’s civil war, where the villages he served were bombed, rocketed, or strafed by some of the same aircraft in which he had previously trained.”
*no “evidence” of arms smuggling from Soviet Union through Nicaragua!

The Violence Central American Migrants Are Fleeing Was Stoked by the US .vice.com “..As courts, law enforcement, and the Trump administration continue to sort out what to do with the steady stream of migrants either crossing the southern border illegally or seeking asylum, the roots of the current misery are often forgotten. The desperate border-crossers often come from Central America’s “Northern Triangle”—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—and are fleeing high homicide rates and violence in those countries. But this instability did not arise in a vacuum. Many historians and policy experts are quick to point out that much of the troubles in Central America were created or at least helped by the US’s interference in those countries going back decades. In other words, the foreign policy of the past has profoundly shaped the present immigration crisis…”

United States calls situation in El Salvador a communist plot – HISTORY history.com“..In both nations, Reagan officials were convinced that the Soviet Union was the catalyst for the troubles. To address the situation in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration began to covertly assist the so-called Contras-rebel forces that opposed the Sandinista regime and were based primarily in Honduras and Costa Rica. For El Salvador, the February 19 report was the first volley. The State Department memorandum indicated that the “political direction, organization and arming of the Salvadoran insurgency is coordinated and heavily influenced by Cuba with the active support of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Vietnam and other communist states.” It thereupon provided a “chronology” of the communist involvement in El Salvador…”

“…The FMLN was supported by the Nicaraguan, Cuban, and Soviet governments. Most people who have studied the conflict in El Salvador would argue that the Soviets did not provide much direct support to the guerrillas. I agree – but Nicaragua and Cuba would not have been able to provide support to the guerrillas had the Soviets not been supporting them. It’s also true that the FMLN did not get as much military and financial support from these two governments as the Salvadoran government received from the United States.

Most postwar discourse has been driven by elites who participated in the conflict either on the part of the guerrillas or the government. It’s not that these individuals’ perspectives are wrong; it is just healthier if they are challenged or supplemented by outside views. Those could come from more objective academics or from non-elite testimonies such as those provided by Lotti Silber in Everyday Revolutionaries: Gender, Violence and Disillusionment in Postwar El Salvador and by Carlos Enrique Consalvi and Jeffrey Gould in La Palabra en El Bosque. These two works let the people of Chalatenango and Morazán, the two departments most affected by the war, tell their own stories.
..”

Cold War – Nicaragua, El Salvador, Archbishop Romero – YouTube

El Salvador and the School of the Americas Part 1 – YouTube

Dirty Hands BENJAMIN SCHWARZ DECEMBER 1998 ISSUE theatlantic.com“..In El Salvador the United States sought to transform the country while allied with the devil it had to subdue. Whether the geopolitical stakes demanded that involvement and whether letting events take their own course would have resulted in even more atrocities can be debated. What is indisputable is that for a decade American policymakers in Washington and American civilian and military personnel in El Salvador consorted with murderers and sadists.

As LeoGrande’s account — if not always his assessment — makes clear, this pact with the devil was made not by the Administration of the aggressively anti-Communist Republican Ronald Reagan but by that of the moderate Democrat Jimmy Carter — ironically, a President deeply committed to emphasizing human rights in his foreign policy. Simply put, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and with Cuban and Soviet influence apparently growing throughout the Third World generally and in Nicaragua specifically, the Carter Administration believed that global containment required the United States to forestall a revolution in El Salvador led by the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), a loose alliance of Marxist guerrilla groups tied to Cuba and the Sandinistas of Nicaragua.

..

El Salvador was ripe for revolution. Its society, in which a small landed elite dominated an exploited peasant labor force, was grossly inequitable even by Latin American standards. That elite ruled the country in partnership with its guardian, the military, which had a long tradition of bloody repression of dissenters and revolutionaries, whom it tended to view as one and the same. Although the Carter Administration was troubled by the abysmal human-rights record of El Salvador’s rightist regime, it feared “another Nicaragua.” So when in late 1980 a rebel victory appeared imminent unless the United States provided military and other forms of aid to the Salvadoran regime, Carter chose to assist the Salvadoran government, and thus hesitantly embarked on the policy that the Reagan Administration would later pursue with alacrity…

In the year leading up to Carter’s decision the Salvadoran armed forces and the right-wing death squads linked to them had killed more than 8,000 noncombatant civilians — among them four U.S. churchwomen….

With lavish brutality the military failed to distinguish between dissenters and revolutionaries; many of its victims were unconnected to the FMLN, but enough were connected that the guerrillas’ political infrastructure was destroyed. The guerrillas simply did not have enough allies left alive in San Salvador to organize a general strike…”

There is a tremendous irony that President George W Bush has chosen to visit El Salvador on the anniversary of the murder of the country’s Archbishop, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, 22 years ago.

A campaigner against the Salvadorean army’s death squad war, Monsignor Romero was shot through the heart while saying Mass, shortly after appealing to the US not to send military aid to El Salvador.

US officials are saying that President Bush’s visit is in part to celebrate a US success story in which his father was personally involved

The appeal fell on deaf ears and for the next 12 years, the US became involved in its largest counter-insurgency war against left-wing guerrillas since Vietnam…”

How U.S. Involvement In Central America Led To a Border Crisis| AJ+

AJ+
Published on Jul 8, 2018
Thousands of Central American refugees and migrants have been coming to the Mexico-U.S. border for almost 40 years – and in spring of 2018, the Trump administration enacted a “zero-tolerance” policy that led to the arrest of any and all refugees and migrants attempting to cross the border into the United States. The most controversial aspect of the policy’s enforcement was the forced separation of parents from their children. While much of the conversation has focused on Central Americans escaping violence, there hasn’t been much on why there’s so much violence in the region to begin with. The story? Almost 200 years of U.S. intervention.

EDIT: We messed up on certain map animations, excluding the nation of Belize – it was unintentional. Thanks to everyone who highlighted this to us.

Economics

El Salvador’s Top 10 Exports August 1, 2018 by Daniel Workman .worldstopexports.com“..El Salvador’s unemployment rate was projected to be 7.1% as of June 2018 according to Trading Economics.
El Salvador’s Top 10 Exports

The following export product groups represent the highest dollar value in Salvadoran global shipments during 2017 at the 2-digit Harmonized Tariff System (HTS) code level. Also shown is the percentage share each export category represents in terms of overall exports from El Salvador.

Drilling down to the more detailed 4-digit HTS codes, El Salvador’s most valuable exported goods are T-shirts, jerseys, overcoats, pantyhose, underwear and socks.

United States Immigrants

George To The Rescue
Published on Sep 29, 2018
George spearheads exterior and basement transformations for first-time homeowners embodying the American Dream.

Notables

Cnel. José Arturo Castellanos geni.com“..José Arturo Castellanos Contreras (San Vicente, El Salvador, December 23, 1893 — San Salvador, June 18, 1977) was a Salvadoran army colonel and diplomat who, while working as El Salvador’s Consul General for Geneva during World War II, and in conjunction with a Jewish-Hungarian businessman named György Mandl, helped save up to 40,000 Jews and Central Europeans from Nazi persecution by providing them with false papers of Salvadoran nationality…”

Castellanos Movie
Published on Sep 3, 2017
The story of Col. José Arturo Castellanos – the Salvadoran diplomat who defied the nazis and saved thousands of Jewish lives during the holocaust – as told by his Canadian grandchildren Alvaro and Boris Castellanos in the performative documentary: The Rescue – A Live Film-Concerto. Live performance filmed on June 14, 2017 in Toronto. http://www.castellanosmovie.com/

“..The goings-on in the life of a successful African-American family…”

Best of the Cosby Show ( all seasons) !!!! – You

Season 1 Episode 01-Pilot Presentation

Season 2 Episode 03 – Happy Anniversary

The Cosby Show: Vanessa gets caught lying to her parents about staying out past her curfew.

Behind the Scenes

E! True Hollywood Story: The Cosby Kids

Cast Post-Show

Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby’s Big Adventure vanityfair.com“..The Cosby/Wussler management group has plotted “a specific strategic plan,”designed to “dramatically enhance profitability right away, re-establish affiliate relations, and put the network back in the hands of TV professionals,” explained one source. Brandon Tartikoff, initially contacted last fall by Cosby, was formally asked to join the team by a Wall Street intermediary during the second week of June. Tartikoff declined both times. Cosby is, however, continuing his search for other members of a proposed triumvirate to run NBC. He himself would continue to perform, but would also put his philosophical imprint on all programming…

original payment of $6.3 billion for the network and parent RCA, dreads a substantial write-down in the event of a sale. So they are suggesting, sources say, that the deal include some kind of “revenue stream” to G.E. over several years. Clearly, Welch wants more than the network is worth. And it’s worth less since those “G.E. weasels” (as Letterman calls them) have taken over. Cheers and Dave himself are history; aging hits are propping up NBC’s prime time, while the hot new shows are turning up elsewhere. ABC has replaced NBC as the family-friendly network, and even NBC News suffered because of deep cutbacks and the Dateline NBC—rigged G.M.-truck scandal. And Welch may be loath to delve into high-tech interactive television or expand further into cable until the network gets back on track…”

Did Cosby have a chance to buy NBC?https://youtu.be/x51e34CJrQo”
Lokcals
Published on Jun 7, 2018
There are lot of conspiracy theories out there about anything and everything. One very popular one is that Bill Cosby tried to buy NBC and that’s why all these allegations came forward. Is it plausible? We discuss.

Dj Lethal Vybz
Published on Jan 2, 2016
Some people need to look more into why so much effort is being put into discrediting Bill Cosby for So Call Rapes That Happened over 30 years ago.This is pure and simple Bill Cosby Tried To Buy NBC and he wouldn’t stop in fact Bill was hell bent on changing the face of black entertainment. Lets take a few minutes and take in this video

Was Bill Cosby “Framed” To Stop NBC Purchase?

BlackTalkRadio
Published on Jul 7, 2017
With the announcement that Bill Cosby will be retried on sexual assault allegations, the conspiracy theorists are once again claiming that the Illuminati is trying to stop Bill Cosby from purchasing NBC. Let us do some quick research and see if this is a conspiracy theory or possibly a conspiracy fact.

You can Support BTR News Today By Making A Financial Contribution To The Non-Profit Black Talk Media Project. Thank You For Your Contribution In Support Of Independent Media https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr&#8230;

Since “The Cosby Show” went off the air in 1992, Owens has acted on shows like “Blue Bloods,” “The Blacklist” and “The Affair.” But money became tight when networks began yanking “The Cosby Show” reruns from the air following dozens of rape accusations against Cosby…..

“The Cosby Show” reruns had been a staple on cable television. But after dozens of women accused Cosby of drugging, raping, coercing or sexually assaulting them, networks began pulling the show’s reruns from their air. TV Land dropped reruns of the series in November 2014. Cable channels Bounce TV and Centric followed suit. The absence of “The Cosby Show” has meant fewer residual checks for the show’s cast.

“The fact is, yeah, there was a certain amount of money that stopped coming in and that made a difference,” Owens said.

Owens, best known for playing the Huxtables’ son-in-law Elvin Tibideaux on the hit ’80s sitcom, was thrust into the limelight over the weekend after a woman photographed him bagging groceries at a New Jersey Trader Joe’s. The photo led to a wider conversation about work ethic, and job-shaming.

..His hope now is that the conversation he helped spark continues, even if his grocery bagging days are over. Owens quit his job because of the recent attention. After the photos went viral, filmmaker Tyler Perry offered him a job on an OWN drama, which Owens accepted.

It was a Hollywood ending even Owens couldn’t have anticipated.

“It was really generous of him to do that and to do that so publicly,” Owens said of Perry. “It was very bold and courageous and generous of him.”

Cosby, who has denied any wrongdoing, was convicted in April of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his Pennsylvania home 14 years ago.”

Phylicia Rashad tells the truth about Bill Cosbyhttps://youtu.be/3sVZNnAarTA‘…
David D.
3 months ago
There’s a good reason Phylicia called this thing “orchestrated.” At least thirty of the women who accused Cosby of almost exactly the same thing were represented by the same lawyer, Gloria Allred. Is that just a coincidence? Who’s paying her fees? Let’s look into that.﻿…

CNN Documentary on Bill Cosby Accusers, May 2018

Lili Bernard
Published on May 16, 2018
CNN Documentary on Bill Cosby Accusers, May 2018

U.S. borders are a lot more secure under Trump: Border Patrol Union Presidenthttps://youtu.be/cvALg6qElmM
Fox Business
Published on Sep 21, 2017

10 Reasons The US Needs Better Border Security By Dave Anderson – May 25, 2016 listland.com“…The real concern that many have is that unregulated and illegal immigration will give rise to social problems, threatening jobs, overwhelming the amenity provision in border areas and threatening the traditional American way of life…

Most countries regulate who may enter and why, whether as short term visitors or to live and work so there is no shame in the US doing likewise. Indeed as a nation the US has very strict entry visa requirements. Nevertheless voters, particularly in border states, concerns continue to express concerns about the policies used to secure the border and the funding given to finance enforcement. The debate tends to polarize into two separate camps with typical Republican voters arguing that more funding needs to be diverted to secure the borders. Meanwhile Democrats tend to espouse the idea that immigration is generally a positive and want to make it easier for illegals to legalize their status reflecting the de-facto reality of life on the ground.

We believe that border security should be viewed as a priority and furthermore 71% of Americans agree with us. Here are 10 of the reasons we believe better border security is vital for America…”

Solutions for America: Developing a Strong Border and Immigration Policy August 17, 2010 4 min read heritage.org“..For far too long, the United States has failed to enforce its immigration laws. Its visa system does not adequately serve the needs of the economy, legal immigrants, or U.S. citizens. Cartel violence and continued illegal immigration along the U.S. southern border have many Americans concerned. Americans are demanding a border and immigration policy that will keep the U.S. free, safe, and prosperous—not an amnesty that simply exacerbates the problem.

Border Violence on the Rise, Illegal Immigration Continues. The U.S. has made progress on securing the border, but the border is still not secure. Drug cartels have seized control of major parts of Mexico’s northern border—with more than 6,000 murders in 2008 from drug cartel violence. The threat of spillover violence in the U.S., as well as continued illegal immigration, remains a significant problem. …”

“..A man in the U.S. illegally has been charged with murder in the death of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts, police announced Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, was charged with murder in connection to the death of Tibbetts, 20, who had been missing for more than a month before authorities discovered her body this week.

If convicted, Rivera could face life in prison, the AP reported…”Cristhian Bahena Rivera: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know“..Rivera confessed to killing Tibbetts and has been charged with first-degree murder, police said. He is a resident of rural Poweshiek County, Iowa, and has lived in the area for about four to seven years, according to police. He faces a penalty of life in prison without parole. Rivera, a 24-year-old Mexican citizen, is being held on an immigration detainer and police said they confirmed with the Department of Homeland Security Investigations that he is an “illegal alien,” DCI Special Agent Richard Rahn said at a press conference…

President Donald Trump talked about the case at a rally in West Virginia hours after Rivera’s arrest:

Iowa murder suspect lived on land owned by GOP fundraiser RYAN J. FOLEY,Associated Press 14 hours ago (8.25.18) yahoo.com“IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A top Republican fundraiser whose firm works for several prominent immigration hardliners is the partial owner of the land where the Mexican man accused of killing Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts lived rent-free, a farm spokeswoman said Friday.

Nicole Schlinger has long been a key fundraiser and campaign contractor for GOP politicians in Iowa and beyond, including this cycle for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Virginia Senate candidate Corey Stewart.

Schlinger is the president of Campaign Headquarters, a call center that makes fundraising calls, identifies supporters and helps turn out voters for conservative candidates and groups. Her business is one of the largest in Brooklyn, the central Iowa town where Tibbetts disappeared while out for a run on July 18.

Schlinger is married to Eric Lang, the president of the family-owned dairy that has acknowledged providing employment and housing for the last four years to Cristhian Bahena Rivera, the man charged with murder in Tibbetts’ death.

The couple — along with her husband’s brother Craig Lang and his wife — own farmland outside Brooklyn that includes trailers where some of the dairy’s employees live for free as a benefit of their employment, farm spokeswoman Eileen Wixted confirmed.

She said Rivera lived there for the duration of his employment, and about half of the farm’s other 10 workers do so as well. Under the arrangement, the farming company pays the couples to rent the land but workers do not have to pay, she said.

In an email Friday, Schlinger said that she was “shocked and deeply saddened” by Tibbetts’ death and had never met Rivera. “The perpetrator should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and when he meets his maker, suffer the consequences he deserves,” she wrote.

She said that she was gifted an ownership interest in the land many years ago from her husband’s family and that she has no role in the farming operation.

Still, the fact that one of its own operatives has indirect ties to the case could complicate GOP efforts to highlight the gruesome slaying in its political messaging ahead of the November midterm election. Dairy co-owner Craig Lang also was a Republican candidate for Iowa agriculture secretary, finishing third in a five-way race in the June primary.

Republicans such as President Donald Trump and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds called for stricter immigration laws and enforcement almost immediately after Rivera, who is suspected of being in the country illegally, was charged Tuesday. Some have blamed Democratic policies for the slaying, even though studies have disputed the notion that those in the country illegally are more likely to commit violent crime.

“Every victim below would be alive today if we enforced our immigration laws,” U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa tweeted Friday, above a picture of Tibbetts and other victims. “Leftists sacrificed thousands, including their own, on the altar of Political Correctness.”

Schlinger’s business calls itself “the best conservative call center in America.” Her biography claims she is the most prolific fundraiser in Iowa GOP history, having brought in more than $50 million for politicians and causes. She has said her business has made millions of phone calls for candidates seeking offices ranging from president to city council since its founding in 1999. Her firm’s client list includes several politicians who routinely call for stricter immigration enforcement.

Federal Election Commission records show that Cruz’s re-election campaign has paid CampaignHQ nearly $1.7 million since the beginning of 2017. A Cruz campaign spokeswoman had no immediate comment…”

Neutral Perspective

-Stats

5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S. pewresearch.org“..Mexicans may no longer be the majority of U.S. unauthorized immigrants. They made up half of all unauthorized immigrants in 2016, according to the Center’s preliminary estimate, marking the first time in at least a decade that they did not account for a clear majority of this population. Their numbers (and share of the total) have been declining in recent years: There were 5.6 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016, down from 6.4 million in 2009.

Meanwhile, the number of unauthorized immigrants from nations other than Mexico has grown since 2009, from 5 million that year to 5.4 million in 2015. Non-Mexicans numbered 5.7 million in the preliminary 2016 estimate, a total that was not statistically different from 2015…

The U.S. civilian workforce includes 8 million unauthorized immigrants, accounting for 5% of those who were working or were unemployed and looking for work, according to separate Pew Research Center estimates. ..”Mexicans No Longer Make Up Majority Of Immigrants In U.S. Illegally April 25, 20175:41 PM ET npr.org“..Their analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that last year, there were 5.6 million Mexican nationals living in the U.S. without authorization – half of the unauthorized immigrant population in 2016. Mexicans have been the majority of that population since 2005, according to the Pew report.

Although Mexicans still make up the largest group of unauthorized immigrants, numbers from Mexico have been on the decline since the Great Recession began in late 2007.

The number of unauthorized immigrants from other countries has been on the rise since the end of the recession, hitting an estimated 5.7 million in 2016. Immigrants from Central America and Asia – largely from India and China — are two of the main drivers of that growth…”

Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments immigration.procon.org
Should the Government Allow Immigrants Who Are Here Illegally to Become US Citizens?

The Great Debate: Solving the US Illegal Immigration … – YouTube

Boston University
Published on Apr 6, 2010
Can Stricter Law Enforcement at the Border and the Workplace Solve the U.S. Illegal Immigration Problem? was the topic of the College of Communication’s 24th semiannual Great Debate, argued in the affirmative by Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., Stephanie Hoffman (LAW’10), and Louis J. Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton, Pa., where local businesses and landlords may be punished by law for giving work or shelter to illegal immigrants. The negative side was argued by B. Lindsay Lowell, the director of policy studies at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, Anuj Shelat (SMG’08), and Shuya Ohno, the director of communications at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA).

-Crime

Is Illegal Immigration Linked to More or Less Crime? By Robert Farley Posted on June 27, 2018 factcheck.org“..President Donald Trump said it’s “not true” that immigrants in the U.S. illegally are “safer than the people that live in the country,” providing several crime statistics he claimed represented the “toll of illegal immigration.” Sen. Bernie Sanders made the opposite claim, saying: “I understand that the crime rate among undocumented people is actually lower than the general population.”

Who is right?

There are not readily available nationwide statistics on all crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally. Researchers have provided estimates through statistical modeling or by extrapolating from smaller samples. One such study backs the president’s claim, but several others support Sanders’ statement…”

Fact Check: Do illegal immigrants commit more crimes?

MrDemented669
7 months ago
if you cross a border illegal you just broke one law so fact is that makes them all criminals.﻿

The Oregonian
Published on Oct 20, 2017
A video shared over 5,000 times on Facebook shows self-identified plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entering a Portland home and arresting a man, without getting permission to enter the home and without a warrant. ICE later released the man, identified only as Carlos

ICE agents approach Latino US citizen, mistake him for … – YouTube

The Oregonian
Published on Sep 20, 2017
An Oregon ACLU legal observer captures footage of a legal citizen being approached by ICE agents near the Washington County Courthouse in Hillsboro on Sept. 18 after they confused him for an undocumented immigrant.

“I don’t want Mollie’s memory to get lost amongst politics,” Calderwood told CNN. “It’s not about race, it’s about people joining together to do good.”

Tibbetts’ distant cousin, Sam Lucas, also spoke out on Twitter, slamming conservative activist Candace Owens for using the death to attack “illegal immigrants.”..

“Hey i’m a member of mollie’s family and we are not so f***ing small-minded that we generalize a whole population based on some bad individuals. now stop being a f***ing snake and using my cousins death as political propaganda. take her name out of your mouth,” she wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
..”

I Can Only Imagine
Published on Jan 9, 2018
I Can Only Imagine: Official Trailer
In Theaters March 16http://icanonlyimagine.com”
It’s the song that brings ultimate hope to so many … often in the midst of life’s most challenging moments. Amazingly, the song was written in mere minutes by MercyMe lead singer Bart Millard. In reality, those lyrics took a lifetime to craft. “

Stop calling Christian movies’ success a ‘surprise’ Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY Published 12:34 p.m. ET March 27, 2018 | Updated 5:25 p.m. ET March 29, 2018 usatoday.com“..That’s not to say every religious movie is a success right out of the gate. Paul, Apostle of Christ starring The Passion of the Christ’s Jim Caviezel made back its $5-million budget this past weekend, although it still trails the openings of other Biblical epics such as Son of God ($25.6 million) and Risen ($11.8 million). ..

1. Look to pre-existing source material.

Some of the biggest Christian hits of the past few years have been based on best-selling books, including last year’s The Shack ($57.4 million total) and 2016’s Miracles From Heaven ($61.7 million), while 2014’s Son of God ($59.7 million total) was adapted from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s hit miniseries The Bible. ..

2. Offer a fresh take on the Bible.

While more straightforward tellings of Jesus’ life like 2006’s The Nativity Story ($37.6 million total) have flourished, it helps to see the story through fresh eyes. Mel Gibson’s 2004 blockbuster The Passion of the Christ ($370.8 million) offered a gritty, violent take on the Messiah’s Crucifixion, and 2016’s Risen ($36.9 million) charted a Roman soldier’s search for Jesus’ body after the Resurrection. ,,

3. Don’t shy away from God.

Three of the five highest-grossing faith-based movies are The Chronicles of Narnia series,released in the mid-2000s. All are based on Christian author C.S. Lewis’ young-adult novels and made $100 million-plus at the U.S. box office. The franchise wore religious symbolism on its sleeve, whereas A Wrinkle in Time more recently skimped on its source material’s Christian messaging, which some people believe may have put a dent in its earnings ($74.1 million so far).

A Wrinkle in Time Trailer #1 (2018) | Movieclips Trailers

“(Author) Madeleine L’Engle had a lot of scripture and ideas that drew from the Bible, and a lot of those things really got ironed out (of the film),” Holz says. “The producers said they wanted to make the movie really inclusive, but I think when you (adapt) a book that has some Christian ideas and take those out, that’s a potential turnoff to your core audience.”..
..”

Author Madeleine L’Engle, who died in 2007 at age 88, spoke about the importance of her own Christian faith as it relates to “A Wrinkle in Time.”

“If I’ve ever written a book that says what I feel about God and the universe, this is it,” L’Engle reportedly wrote in her journal. “This is my psalm of praise to life, my stand for life against death.” ..”A Wrinkle in Time (2018 film) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org“.Budget $100–130 million[2][3][4]
Box office $132.4 million[5]..”

Paul, Apostle of Christ: Official Trailer | Now Playing – YouTube

Top 13 highest grossing faith films Movies
May 10th, 2017 foxnews.com“..Here’s a look at the top 13 highest grossing faith-based films from highest to lowest.
1. ‘The Passion of the Christ:’ $611,899,420..”

At around 2 a.m. in northern Atlanta, Ashley Smith had just returned to her apartment after making a late night run to a convenience store. It was then that she noticed a suspicious looking man sitting in his car.

She felt uneasy, so she jumped out of her car and hurried to her apartment.. She put the keys in the lock, opened the door, and the stranger was right behind her.

“I started to scream at the top of my lungs and he came up to me (saying) ‘Shut up, shut up!’ He just pointed the gun at me. ‘Just shut up. If you don’t scream I won’t hurt you.’ So, I stopped screaming. And he pushed me in the house, and shut the door and locked it. And I knew I wasn’t going to make it out of there. I knew I was going to die. But I immediately said, “’God, look, he can rape me. He can do whatever he wants to me. Just let me walk out of here alive.’”

Inside, he told Ashley he was Brian Nichols, the man police had been looking for…”

Captive Movie – Official Trailer – YouTube

Captive Movie
Published on Jun 16, 2015
Based on an inspiring true story, WATCH the official CAPTIVE movie trailer starring Kate Mara and David Oyelowo. http://www.captivethemovie.com/

The rising influence of faith-based movie fans By Allison Stewart September 18, 2015 washingtonpost.com“..Mara is Oyelowo’s co-star in the new film “Captive,” the true-life story of escaped murderer Brian Nichols and his hostage, Ashley Smith, who persuades him to release her using the power of faith and a dog-eared copy of Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life.”..

“There’s certain groups of people that only watch Christian movies,” says David A.R. White, who produced and co-starred in “God’s Not Dead” and co-founded the Christian production company Pure Flix. “They don’t have cable, they don’t watch mainstream TV, they just watch Christian content. We had so many write in that they went to ‘God’s Not Dead,’ and it was their first movie in eight to 10 years in a movie theater. That opened the door to, like, ‘Oh, wow, maybe the movies aren’t a sinful place.’ When ‘Heaven’ came out, they started going more consistently.

…Movies such as “The Blind Side,” “Unbroken” and “Selma,” so-called faith-friendly movies that subtly interject Christian principles into inspirational mainstream stories, may be the best hope of bridging the gulf between secular and faith-based audiences. They’re difficult to do well, says Rich Peluso, senior vice president of Affirm Films, the faith-based Sony subsidiary that released “War Room.” “Too many times, producers or filmmakers are thinking you can just tap into the faith-based market. They think of them as one giant group, and if you can just stick a priest in a scene, it’s going to connect with those folks, but the community is very diverse.”..
””

During this same span of time, Christian movies saw an explosion of interest as studios realized that a large portion of their audience wasn’t being satisfied with the latest Oscar winners and science fiction blockbusters. The Christian film industry was also helped by the growth of independent filmmaking over the last 20-30 years. Even though Hollywood has grown a little fonder of Christian stories, that doesn’t mean faith-based films are completely at the mercy of an industry that mostly doesn’t understand Christians. We can become our own storytellers and work around the system.

Christian films have seen an increase in production mostly because a number of them have found box office success. This success is defined not just by overall dollars earned but return on investment. If you make a film for $10 million and it earns $12 million in theaters, that’s not exactly a great success. Production budgets often don’t include the costs of marketing or details on distribution rights, so a safe formula for financial success is generally that a movie must make double its listed production budget. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the Christian movies which had the biggest box office success..

Chronicles of Narnia

“The Chronicles of Narnia” is one of, if not the biggest Christian entertainment franchise in existence. C.S. Lewis’ magnificent world has been brought to the screen three times. First, there was “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” which earned around $750 million on a budget of $180 million. Next, we had “Prince Caspian” in 2008. This is the only film featured on this list that doesn’t match up to the “double the production budget” rule. The film did earn $420 million, but it had a really steep budget at $225 million. The Narnia series picked things back up with “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” two years later. That film made roughly the same amount of money as its predecessor, but it cost $60 million less to make. The Narnia films each have a huge budget for Christian movies, but they tend to make their money back.”

RISEN Official Final Trailer (2016) Joseph Fiennes, Tom … – YouTube

Follows the epic Biblical story of the Resurrection, as told through the eyes of a non-believer. Clavius, a powerful Roman Military Tribune, and his aide Lucius, are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following the crucifixion, in order to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem. Director: Kevin Reynolds Stars: Tom Felton, Joseph Fiennes, Cliff Curtis In theaters: February 9, 2016

Jennifer Garner finds faith, again, in ‘Miracles From Heaven’ Elysa Gardner, @elysagardner, USA TODAY Published 8:04 a.m. ET March 14, 2016 | Updated 5:59 p.m. ET March 14, 2016 usatoday.com“..But “I think I had become complacent in raising my children, almost as though (I thought) they were going to receive the ground beneath their feet that heaven had given me through osmosis,” she says. Returning home after filming, Garner raised the subject with her kids, “and they said, ‘Well, we want to go to church.’ ”

Garner “was floored, and I immediately looked up the local United Methodist church. We went there next Sunday, and it turned out to be the perfect environment. We’ve gotten so much from it; it’s like a gift Christy gave me.”..”

Miracles from Heaven (2016) historyvshollywood.com
Starring Jennifer Garner, Martin Henderson, Queen Latifah, Kylie Rogers | based on the memoir ‘Miracles from Heaven’ by Christy Beam“..The Miracles from Heaven true story reveals that when Annabel Beam was five years old she was diagnosed with two rare life-threatening digestive disorders, pseudo-obstruction motility disorder and antral hypomotility disorder, which resulted in frequent hospital stays (FoxNews.com). The former is characterized by altered and inefficient contractions (peristalsis) of the muscles in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, which help to move food content along. Instead of food content being passed efficiently, the intestines react as if there is a blockage, leading to inefficient absorption of nutrients. The latter, antral hypomotility disorder, is characterized by weak contractions in the antrum part of the stomach…”

October Baby klovefanawards.com“..“October Baby” was a modest success that took home over $5 million in ticket sales on a budget about one-fifth that amount. Released in 2011, the film is about a young woman who discovers that she was adopted by her parents after her birth mother tried to abort her. It’s a very emotional film as you can imagine. Adding a personal story to such a hot button issue is the kind of thing that Hollywood often does with themes like immigration, health care, and war…”

October Baby: Official Movie Trailer – YouTube

The Problem with ‘October Baby,’ A Christian Film About Abortion Morgan Feddes| March 21, 2012 christianitytoday.com
No one wanted the film. Except audiences, apparently.“..October Baby is a fairly typical coming-of-age love story, but the plot hinges on the main character’s discovery that she’s an abortion survivor. (Jon Erwin wrote it after hearing abortion survivor Gianna Jessen speak.) Though studio executives loved the film, they didn’t want to take on the controversial topic.

But the Erwins managed to raise enough support to do a limited release last October, and on its opening weekend it was the fourth-highest grossing film for per-screen average at almost $8,000 per theater. The positive reaction was enough to convince Provident Films and Samuel Goldwyn Films to help bring the movie to a wider audience—about 350 theaters when it releases on Friday, March 23…”